Thromboelastography Profile of Patients with COVID-19 Admitted to Intensive Care Unit: A Single-center Retrospective Study from India

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) causes thromboinflammation resulting in a high incidence of venous thromboembolism (VTE) events, which occur in significant numbers despite giving standard thromboprophylaxis with low-molecular-weight heparins. Various markers and tests have been evaluated and found to have a strong association with the worse prognosis of the disease. Common coagulation markers like D-dimer and fibrinogen give more of a static picture of coagulation, whereas viscoelastic tests like thromboelastography (TEG) provide an understanding of the coagulation function and help in better interpretation. We conducted a retrospective analysis of TEG values of 32 patients with COVID-19 admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU). Hypercoagulation as defined by TEG-coagulation index (CI) higher than the upper limit of the normal reference range (NRR) is found in 62.5% of the patients. There is also a clear representation of hypercoagulability as reflected by TEG-R, TEG-K, and TEG-LY30 values lower than or toward the lower limit of NRR, and TEG-ANGLE, TEG-MA, and TEG-CI values higher than or toward the upper limit of NRR which is more pronounced in severe forms of the disease, both in comparison to NRRs and other non-COVID ICU patients. Findings are similar to that of earlier studies in patients with COVID-19 except for the LY30, which is retained in the majority of our patients. Thromboelastography can be a useful tool to understand and screen for COVID-19-related hypercoagulability and may help predict VTE events. The potential of TEG to determine the optimal anticoagulant therapy needs to be evaluated in larger prospective studies. How to cite this article: Saseedharan S, Talla VB, Chiluka A. Thromboelastography Profile of Patients with COVID-19 Admitted to Intensive Care Unit: A Single-center Retrospective Study from India. Indian J Crit Care Med 2020;24(12):1218–1222.